Special interest attaches to this design, also to "The Horse Fair in Brittany," reproduced on page [137], for the insight it gives of Caldecott's varied artistic powers, which, by force of circumstances, were always held in reserve. If, as a writer remarks, "The treatment of reliefs is a test of the state of a school of sculpture," these examples may help to "place" Caldecott amongst contemporary artists.
Early in 1878, Mr. Edmund Evans, the wood engraver, came to him with a proposal that he should illustrate some books for children to be printed in colours. The plan was soon decided upon, and the first of the Picture Books was begun. In the summer of the same year, Caldecott went with the writer for a second time to Brittany.
It was at first intended to take a gig and drive through and through, the country, giving an account of adventures from day to day, and Caldecott (who was more at home perhaps, in a gig than in any other position of life) favoured the idea; but time and other circumstances prevented.
The next proposal was to give a general description of the country and its people, its churches and ruined castles, as they exist to-day. But Caldecott did not take to this idea; he never in his lifetime drew buildings with the same facility as figures, and, at that time, to attempt to make drawings of chateaux, cathedrals and the like, would have been unsuccessful. So the book, Brittany Picturesque, which had already been partly written, was laid aside to give space for sketches of Breton Folk.[10]
"The Trap."
"We obtained a trap in a few days"—not the gig, independent of a driver, which Caldecott always sighed for. His delight and high spirits on the first journey, in 1874, are seen in the sketch where he is waving farewell to some astonished peasantry. To be "on the road" was always a pleasure to Caldecott, from the "old Whitchurch days," which he often described to his friends—driving home in the dark at reckless speed after a late supper, in a dog-cart full of rather uproarious company—down to 1885 at Frensham, when as host, he would drive his friends in the lanes of Surrey.
At least 200 sketches must have been made in these journeys; besides jottings of heads, figures and the like, and several drawings in water colours.